34 posts in this topic

chrisj1968 1,413

I never liked them but back in 1998-2000 when I worked as a specialist at the Giessen Germany PX for our veterans(which is long gone by now) we sold systems by Intel, AMD and Cyrix.

Intel.. I liked alot

AMD.. I liked alot ( i enjoy the proverbial underdog)

Cyrix.. Yawn....

But just out of curiosity, whatever happened to them? Did they die a horrible death? I really don't know... because for a long time I got away from the tech savvy world for about 4-5 years afterward

Why do I say Nostalgia? I didn't like them and I always steered people away from Cyrix processors because they seemed so inferior, slower and everyone whoever purchased one of those systems had nothing but issues and always returned them for their money back. Talk about a company being a waste of time.

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HawkMan 4,810

They ended up being bought by VIA I believe, making low power low performance processors. I think VIA killed them off when the Atoms and C2D's arrived and the Cyrix' had the performance of a calculator and didn't even compete on power usage.

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spudtrooper 335

I have a buddy that works on the VIA x86 cpus, they're still alive and well making chips with x86 instructions for specific markets. It's done by CenTaur technology here in Austin and its a great bunch of guys.

Even with all the quirks of the Cyrix/Via CPU's, they did achieve their goal of helping break the price barrier of PC's and showed what smaller 3rd party companies could achieve by licensing IP

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HawkMan 4,810

then the configurations we got at the PX were terribly substandard. They seemed to have alot of compatability issues.

Nah, Cyrix where cheap and that's what they where sold as, but they where slow as hell. it didn't help that the only ones that bothered making chipsets for them was the crappiest chiopset makes, like VIA. and back then chipsets varied a lot more in quality, from rock solid intel, to workably stable other brand, to ... well Via... AMD suffered under the same problem, while their CPU's often outperformed intel, there was no rock solid intel chipsets for them :)

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chrisj1968 1,413

Nah, Cyrix where cheap and that's what they where sold as, but they where slow as hell. it didn't help that the only ones that bothered making chipsets for them was the crappiest chiopset makes, like VIA. and back then chipsets varied a lot more in quality, from rock solid intel, to workably stable other brand, to ... well Via... AMD suffered under the same problem, while their CPU's often outperformed intel, there was no rock solid intel chipsets for them :)

I think back in the late 90's AMD used VIa chipsets. I did catch hell at times because of this.

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AJerman 762

Nah, Cyrix where cheap and that's what they where sold as, but they where slow as hell. it didn't help that the only ones that bothered making chipsets for them was the crappiest chiopset makes, like VIA. and back then chipsets varied a lot more in quality, from rock solid intel, to workably stable other brand, to ... well Via... AMD suffered under the same problem, while their CPU's often outperformed intel, there was no rock solid intel chipsets for them :)

As I recall VIA wasn't all crappy chipsets. I seem to remember them having some pretty decent boards back in the early Pentium... maybe up to P3 days. I believe my dual P3 board was a pretty nice VIA board. I do recall them having issues with compatibility with their chipsets though. Talk of VIA and Cyrix does bring back memories though, haha. This was when I was first getting into computer hardware, personally.

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HawkMan 4,810

I think back in the late 90's AMD used VIa chipsets. I did catch hell at times because of this.

AMD didn't use any specific chipsets. AMD didn't really make chipsets themselves outside of some server stuff. But Via was one of those who made AMD chipsets, one of the worst. also the biggest and hard to avoid, but there you go. today third party chipset makers are pretty much gone.

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Phouchg 1,744

Is it, though? I mean, a used phone could be hacked to be about as useful, and probably smaller.

I think it is. One doesn't have even to hack it, it runs x86-64 and with it most desktop OS (including Windows, which is important) with no limitations and supports SSDs with their insane speed. If it was going for $100-$150 or so, it probably would have been a big deal and would be standing side by side with Intel's NUC and Gigabyte's Brix.

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n_K 1,180

Yeah they're now VIA low power chips, which are x86 instruction set compatible. Performance wise they're nothing compared to intel but they're much more power efficient for their performance than the intel lineup and are intended for the embedded market, some VIA chips don't need heatsinks or fans for instance.

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Phouchg 1,744

Performance-wise I often wonder where exactly is the border area of where processing speed becomes a problem and I/O speed gives up. I've been putting together G-series Celerons and with any SSD they're still flying. Same goes for absolutely crappy plastic low-end laptops. Upgraded with any SSD (60 GB is real cheap, especially if you can trade in that 500 GB HDD that comes originally). For simple home and office use I actually see why the usual desktop just doesn't seem a good option. Mechanical HDDs are holding us back.

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HawkMan 4,810

Yeah they're now VIA low power chips, which are x86 instruction set compatible. Performance wise they're nothing compared to intel but they're much more power efficient for their performance than the intel lineup and are intended for the embedded market, some VIA chips don't need heatsinks or fans for instance.

cough atom cough

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threetonesun 1,205

I think it is. One doesn't have even to hack it, it runs x86-64 and with it most desktop OS (including Windows, which is important) with no limitations and supports SSDs with their insane speed. If it was going for $100-$150 or so, it probably would have been a big deal and would be standing side by side with Intel's NUC and Gigabyte's Brix.

I suppose. I think the bigger issue is at what point do you really need a system that small and are willing to compromise. I mean, you could fit a Mac Mini in a car and use it as a car PC, it's not much bigger and it's a fully functioning PC. Smaller than that, you probably really want a chip that is disposable, or you want something all in one. Or you just split the usage, with something like a home server and then really small, really low power devices that receive the data (ala the apple TV or similar devices).

Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that we can have fully functioning PCs at that size and price, but I'm not sure that they're a best solution for anything yet.